Stories from the Graveyard - The Clay Brothers Tragedy

19 Aug 2025

John Clay, head of the Clay family, was born in Hale on 10th October 1838. He married Ann Fleet, born in 1839 in Toxteth, Liverpool, on 11th July 1858 in St. Peter's Church, Liverpool. 

In the early census records, we find John working as a wheelwright, a trade that led the family to Ashton-in-Makerfield, where, by 1871, they were living in Downall Green.

With the help of our chapel committee Chairman, Brian Naylor, and committee member Edward Painter, we have located on a contemporary map where the family lived and where John most likely worked. Downall Green had both a lock & hinge factory and a blacksmith’s smithy, either of which could have employed John as a wheelwright.

John and Ann’s first children were James (born 1858) and William (born 1863) and their daughter Mary (born 1870). By the 1871 census, the family of five were living close to John’s work in an industrial landscape that, just two years later, would witness great tragedy.

On 9th February 1873, James and William went out to play near their home. That winter was exceptionally severe:

“February was unusually cold. From the 1st to the 24th, we suffered all over this country an unwanted run of unmitigated north-east blasts, which made the month the winter of the year.” — Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Weather Report, 1873

The boys ventured onto a frozen reservoir near Downall Green. At some point, the ice gave way, and both fell into the freezing water. Their bodies were not found until hours later (as shown on James' death certificate below). The inquest took place the following day, and the brothers were laid to rest at Park Lane Chapel. Curiously, the family had no known Unitarian connections, and the rest of the family is buried in Widnes, where they moved after the tragedy.

Later that same year, on 14th July 1873, Ann Clay gave birth to another son. He was named Willie, in memory of one of his lost brothers. Willie lived to adulthood, working as a railway wagon builder, and died in 1946 in Runcorn. In 1875, John and Ann had their final child, Eva, born in Wigan, who sadly died aged just nine in 1884.

By the 1881 census John Clay had become a licensed victualler (pub landlord), and by 1891 and 1901 he was recorded as a retired wheelwright, living in Widnes. Both John and Ann died in the early 1900s. Their daughter, Mary, married (becoming Mary Entwistle) and worked as a music teacher. Their son Willie, as mentioned, continued the family line, working for United Alkali in Widnes and later recorded in the 1939 census as a railway wagon builder foreman.

The Clay family story is one of industry, tragedy, resilience, and change — their two young sons, James and William, now resting in the quiet of our chapel graveyard, continue to remind us of the fragility of life and the endurance of memory.